Hi-Fi Hierarchy

Many people do not comprehend the very obvious logic of how to assemble a hi-fi
or home theater system. That is, most people will actually start by looking at
speakers first instead of the electronics or more importantly, the sources (CD
players, turntables, etc...) when initially shopping for a new system. This is
easy to understand, given each manufacturer's claims that the particular
component that they produce is the most important in any system. Speaker
manufacturers far outnumber all other manufacturers combined, so it is only
natural that the hi-fi industry as a whole places the most emphasis on speakers.
We think that is a serious mistake.

Hawthorne Stereo carries a broad range of products that cover the entire hi-fi
and home theater chain from beginning to end. And while we would very much like
to see a customer purchase a pair of "expensive, high-end" speakers, we would
strongly discourage that person from doing so if the rest of that person's
system does not provide a signal of adequate quality for the particular speaker.
We are prepared to admit the obvious truth that a new loudspeaker can change the
character of a hi-fi system. It is, nonetheless, unlikely to offer any real
improvement to a system, unless the current speaker is already the weakest link
in the system (which it rarely is).

The place to start anything is at the beginning, and the beginning of a hi-fi or
home theater system is the source. That is, the CD player, the turntable, the
tuner or the cassette deck is the start of the system. In a CD playback system,
the source is the CD and the hi-fi components occur in the following hierarchy:

If you do a poor job of getting information off the CD at the beginning of the
system, it is impossible for any component further down the chain to improve
upon that signal. It is not possible for an amplifier to improve upon the signal
that is put into it. It is not even a matter of how good the amplifier is; it
simply cannot improve the signal that is fed into it. The same is true of
speakers. In fact, improving the speaker when there is a fault earlier in the
system will only serve to more clearly reveal the fault. Once the CD player, the
preamplifier and the power amplifier are optimized, it becomes possible to use a
pair of budget loudspeakers at the end of such a system with extremely good
results. Indeed, it will be impossible to surpass the result obtained with such
a system than by using the best available speakers with a lesser CD player or an
inferior amplifier. Only when all these components have been optimized does it
make sense to use the best speaker available. If you think about this
proposition for a moment, it is self-evident, logical, sensible, and obviously
correct. Unfortunately, hi-fi magazines and uneducated retailers have for many
years attributed most improvements to loudspeakers. They apparently believe that
because the loudspeaker is where the music comes out, it must be the most
important part of the hi-fi system.

We hope that this brief discussion of the hierarchy of a hi-fi system has
provided some insight into the proper assembly of, or improvement to, a hi-fi
system. It is still critical, however, that any change you plan to make in your
system be carefully evaluated by actually listening to the component in
question. Any competent dealer will have demonstration facilities which are
sufficiently good to clearly and quickly demonstrate the hierarchy of a system
and to allow the necessary comparisons to be made. Confusion will only arise if
the dealer's facilities are inadequate (for example, if he has more than one
pair of speakers in the room at one time; not counting home theater), or if some
other fundamental error is being made. Your best safeguard against that is a
basic understanding of the hierarchy of a hi-fi system and system set-up. Armed
with this knowledge, you can quickly evaluate a dealer's understanding of the
basics of hi-fi. If he doesn't understand the basics, that dealer isn't likely
to be of much help when it comes time to make decisions concerning the
improvement of your particular system.